Sterling K. Brown makes history with best actor in a drama win at Golden Globes

Sterling K. Brown officially made Golden Globes history Sunday night. The This Is Us starred nabbed his first Golden Globe — for Best Actor in a TV Series, Drama — and became the first black actor to ever win in the category.

And he thanked This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman for the opportunity.

“Now, Dan Fogelman, throughout the majority of my career, I’ve benefited from colorblind casting, which means, hey, let’s throw a brother in there. That’s always really cool,” Brown said as he accepted his award. “But Dan Fogelman, you wrote a role for a black man that can only be played by a black man. So what I appreciate so much about this is that I’m being seen for who I am and being appreciated for who I am, and it makes it that much more difficult to dismiss me or dismiss anybody who looks like me.”

Watch Brown’s speech below.

Backstage after his big win, Brown spoke about making history with his win. “I was thinking I’ve never been the first brother to do anything,” he said. “I was the fourth black student council at my high school, I was the second black JV captain of my basketball team. To finally be the first of something is interesting because I never consider myself a trailblazer… I try to stand in my truth all the time. If I come from a place of truth all the time, then I can’t worry about trying to be Jackie Robinson or anybody else. I’m honored that they chose to honor a little network show and a character that gets 45 minutes to tell their story when other shows have 60. I feel a tremendous amount of pride and I look forward to seeing someone else stand up here and hold this trophy not 75 years from now.”

In the family drama and perpetual tearjerker, Brown stars as Randall Pearson, the adopted black son of a white family. He reconnects with his biological father (played by Ron Cephas Jones) in the first season and explores being a foster parent in the second. “We’re able to take the mundane, the routine, the ordinary, and are able to create something that is epic, and larger than just life itself,” he told EW in November. “Life is big, and it has all these different twists and turns.”

Brown previously won an Emmy for his performance — a historic win, as it made him the first black actor to win the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series since 1998 — along with an Emmy the year before for his turn as Chris Darden in the first season of American Crime Story.

The actor beat out Jason Bateman of Ozark, Freddie Highmore of The Good Doctor, Bob Odenkirk of Better Call Saul, and Liev Schreiber of Ray Donovan for the win.